11/02/2008:
John "Drumbo" French is releasing a new CD of Beefheart-influenced music,
"City of Refuge", on Proper Records. The Proper Records page and the
MySpace page have more
details, including song clips and a story of how the album came together.
A number of other Magic Band veterans - Bill Harkleroad AKA Zoot Horn Rollo, Mark Boston AKA Rockette Morton, Greg Davidson AKA Ella Guru, and John Thomas all play on the album.

I've been able to hear this album myself. It has the same discombobulated
rhythms and distant blues influence as Trout Mask Replica without being a
rehash of the same songs. I'd recommend "To the Loft of Ravenscroft" and
"The Withered Hand of Time" for anyone looking to focus on that influence.
If you bought "O Solo Drumbo" or "Grow Fins" and liked the shape of the
songs, you will enjoy this too.

Patrick Grant mailed along some corrections to the lyrics for
Dropout Boogie. (01/03/2004)

12/01/03: (approx)
Page 96 of the Dec. 5th Entertainment Weekly notes that Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco enjoys listening to
Clear Spot "just about anytime".

I've cleaned up the individual Albums, and some other material
on the site. Since this site is relatively static, I'm working slowly on stripping it down to
a good reference format.

11/01/03: (approx)Ted Alvy sent along mail noting that The Magic Band
is at All Tomorrow's Parties performing at
Long Beach, California, on the 8th of November, 2003. Tickets are on sale now,
at Ticketmaster. Catch it, if you can, as I don't know how many more dates they will play.

Looking at the lineup, Moris Tepper is playing the
next day, on the 9th. Moris was in the Magic Band from the Bat Chain Puller album onwards,
and is also a decent guy. I don't know if he'll be participating in the Magic Band performance,
but you should catch him wherever he shows up.

10/01/03: (approx)
John French helpfully sent a link to a short review of
"Back To The Front",
the recent album from he and other Magic Band members. You should be able to buy it online,
if not at your local store.
Note: Samples are at Amazon,
Barnes & Noble (Realaudio),
and FYE (Windows Media).

Rockette Morton, now playing with the reformed Magic Band, has a new solo album out, called Love Space. Details are available at his website.

It's been something like 3-4 years, but I'm finally doing some cleanup on the site...
If it's gone missing from this site, it's probably replicated elsewhere.

09/22/03:
I'm slowly cleaning up the Albums section - some pages may be
messy until all pages and stylesheets are set correctly. Until then:
A recent issue of Entertainment Weekly had a shot from the upcoming
Jack Black movie,
School of Rock. In the shot
was a "rock family tree", which listed
Captain Beefheart in the "?" category. Also, there's this
Covers Project Beefheart page.

Bob Johnson of the Knitting Factory in New York City sent this along:

Fast 'n Bulbous, The Captain Beefheart Project, featuring Gary Lucas,
arranged by Phillip Johnston w/ A screening of very rare Beefheart
footage.
Friday August 1st Two Shows 9 and 11PM
Tickets on sale now at
www.knittingfactory.com.

Two Knitting Factory alum return to celebrate the music of Van Vliet
better known to legions
of fans as Captain Beefheart. Beefheart's music was genre jumping,
extreme, at times absurdist
but more than anything influential to scores of musicians that are
carrying on traces of his style
today.
Gary Lucas was a member of Beefhearts Magic Band and went on to become a
Knitting Factory
favorite before forming his band, Gods and Monsters which has over time
had Jeff Buckley and Matthew Sweet in its line up.
Phillip Johnston's Microscopic Septet was one of the defining bands of the
early days of The Knitting Factory.
A mainly self-taught soprano saxophonist and composer, Johnston has went on
to gain much fame in scoring films.
Last time we did this show it sold out fast, so get your tickets now.

Robert Williams has updated his
Devil's Playground
site with some original Beefheart sketches.

Paul Brown's continuation of the magazine that started my site, Steal Softly Thru Snow, is now available.
I strongly recommend it - he has an exclusive interview with John French/Drumbo, gobs of pictures, data
for record collector fanatics, etc. Issue #7 is a faithful continuation of what Gerry Pratt started. Back issues
may be available soon.

(Please make cheques payable to "P. Brown". If you are sending cheques or
International Money Orders from outside the UK , PLEASE MAKE THEM PAYABLE IN
STERLING. Cash is fine, but send it RECORDED DELIVERY for your own peace of
mind)

"Waiting on the Flame was a project I did for Demon. My "Solo Project" so to speak.
It was basically a collection of outtakes from CBA (Henry Kaiser Band with Andy West, Bob
Adams, Michael Maksemenko) mixed with two different sets of Demos I did
on a twelve track Akai. It was mixed poorly and put out as representative of what I would do. "

My final project for my master's degree in Information Technology, using Home Page Replica, has been
approved! This means I'll be working on programming more than updates. Also, my immediate supervisor
at work just left, and I'm taking over his job. That's great, except I still have to do my old work too, so I'm
busy, busy, busy. Updates will be irregular for a while, so please be patient with me - I'll still check email, and
there is of course the always excellent Radar Station...

Next update: When I can. See above.

11/05/98:
This update's a bit late, but it's got a gem: I just got a email interview with
John French - It was a quick ten questions, but he packed a lot into the response.

Nobody's said anything on the "Out There Over There" bootleg. It must be very new, or rare. Anyone know about it?

I was passed along news about the upcoming Beefheart box set: 5 CDs, The first will be early stuff.
The second live 1968, the third and fourth the original TMR recordings, and the 5th, a sort of "everything else". There will also be 30 minutes of video on the 4th CD.

Anyone heard of the "Out There Over There" bootleg? What's on it?

10/20/98:
Anyone willing to dupe their Beefheart videotapes for someone who needs them? Contact
me and I'll get you in contact with the person who needs them. It needs to be in NTSC
format - soon..

Here's my writeup proposing to work on Home Page Replica as my final project for
my Master's degree in Information Technology. This is the first draft.

10/6/98:
If you're looking for a copy of John French's recent
"O Solo Drumbo" cd (and you should!),
check these addresses:

Koch International - distributor for the US. Their main number is 516-484-1000.
Downtown Music Gallery, 800-622-1387, dmg@panix.com
Forced Exposure, http://www.forcedexposure.com, Wayside, #301-589-6047

Writing a search engine... You can try it, but it probably won't work yet.

"I now have books. Signed copies are $25 (U.S. currency only please) Send
cash, check or money order to

Bill Harkleroad
P.O. Box 51106
Eugene OR. 97405
USA

Don't forget to include your name and return address!"

I've read his "Lunar Notes" book - very good, written conversationally. It certainly has a lot of
odds and ends of information on the Magic Band I never heard before. He also touches on some of
his guitar concepts, so if you play guitar, it's an extra treat. You can also buy "Lunar Notes" at
Amazon.com or
Barnes & Noble.
(Get the signed copy - it's more cool.)

John French said this recently:"Although, by sheer coincidence, Zoot Horn Rollo was originally my stage
name. I was christened that in late 1967 and then after Bill joined the
band, Don came up with the name Drumbo for me, and Zoot went to him. It
never felt right on me anyway. I believe Alex actually made up the name
Zoot Horn Rollo as a joke one day."

On a side note - I appreciate when people transcribe lyrics for me. However, to save
duplicated effort, you may want to check the
lyrics archive (in alphabetical order) or else
it won't do much good.

Would a search engine that covered Beefheart specific sites (like the ones
listed below in "Ongoing Issues") be useful for you? Tell me...

9/14/98:
Cody Vanderver, passed along a bunch of items:
Horizons Music apparently has a lot of Beefheart
music for under $10. He also noted that Zoot Horn Rollo has his own web pages up at:
http://www.teleport.com/~zhr/

(as posted before...)Zoot Horn Rollo/Bill Harkleroad's book
Lunar Notes
is due out this week, according to Zoot's brother, Bob Horn Rollo. He also notes that anyone wishing
to obtain a signed copy of the book right from the author should email Zoot at
zhr@teleport.com. Please be patient, though,
as ZHR/Bill has a lot on his plate right now, having just released a book. (Figure there will be some
turnaround time on any signed volumes.)

Zoot Horn Rollo/Bill Harkleroad's book
Lunar Notes
is due out Sept. 1, according to Zoot's brother, Bob Horn Rollo. He also notes that anyone wishing
to obtain a signed copy of the book right from the author should email Zoot at
zhr@teleport.com. Please be patient, though,
as ZHR/Bill has a lot on his plate right now, having just released a book. (Figure there will be some
turnaround time on any signed volumes.)

It will also be available at Amazon.com,
Helter Skelter (an excellent British bookstore in London I've visited myself,
Barnes & Noble, and probably other places, too.
Theo's got some other local links...

I'll mention here again excellent musician and Beefheart fan Henry Kaiser's website at
http://php.indiana.edu/~mpiper/HKMain.html.
He has done a mindbending amount of musical work that includes some excellent Beefheart covers
and work with ex-Magic Band members.

The upcoming book "Lunar Notes" from Bill Harkleroad/Zoot Horn Rollo, long time Magic Band
guitarist, is available for preorder from
Amazon.com. Here's a direct
link to it.
The details there mention it will be here in September with 192 pages. I may eventually
have an address from which one can order it direct, if anyone would prefer. (It may make
more money for the authors, which is always a nice thing.)

I posted a transcript helpfully typed by Steve Froy and posted to the FireParty (check
the Radar Station for details) of a page of the
"Captain Beefheart Vs. the Grunt People" movie script.
That's a darn long sentence.

The Revenant project (Beefheart CD set) is underway. More news as I hear it -
should be out by the end of the year.

7/27/98:
The Captain Beefheart RealAudio show is on tonight - did anyone capture
it to a file?

"Revenant's 4-cd hardcover book set of unissued/rare Beefheart tracks has
now been scheduled for November release through our distributor Koch.
This means that we need to have all tracks, texts and materials in hand
and squared away by August 1, which is only 5 weeks away [a few days, now - Justin]. This will give
us the full month of August to do the layout and mastering, so that we
can submit everything to press by the beginning of September, allowing 8
weeks for pressing, printing and bindery. The 4 cds will be housed in a
foil-stamped, cloth-bound hardcover 64+ page book, so it'll take a bit
of time to lay it out but should prove to be a whopper."

If you want to contribute, contact Dean at
revenant1@earthlink.net. If you have specific
material such as photos, recordings, concert posters, etc., contact
timmdaly@aol.com as he's
managing those materials for Dean.

7/14/98:
Sent by Marc Wielaert, among others:"4 hours of Captain Beefheart in RealAudio. Hear the Captain talk!
NPS/VPRO Supplement, the Dutch radioshow on alternative music on Radio
4, will dedicate 4 hours of radio to the music of Captain Beefheart.
Large parts of the program have previously been broadcast on the 16th of
august 1993.
In 1993, Co de Kloet had a long telephone conversation with Don van
Vliet, and this bizarre conversation formed the base of the broadcast
then, including of course the unique record and CD-material that Captain
Beefheart produced in his career.
On request: Lick My Decals Off, Baby, 4 hours of Captain Beefheart, Juli
27th, 20.02 - 00.00 hours (CET) on Radio 4 in the Netherlands. During
the broadcast also in RealAudio all over the world.
http://www.nps.nl/supplement/

On an unrelated note, local Rochester magazine Computer Link has interviewed
me for their "Web PROfiles" section - if you are in the area, give it a read.
Shiningsilence, though not HPR, gets a mention.

And for a few more days, from Dean Blackwood at Revenant:

"Revenant's 4-cd hardcover book set of unissued/rare Beefheart tracks has
now been scheduled for November release through our distributor Koch.
This means that we need to have all tracks, texts and materials in hand
and squared away by August 1, which is only 5 weeks away [a few days, now - Justin]. This will give
us the full month of August to do the layout and mastering, so that we
can submit everything to press by the beginning of September, allowing 8
weeks for pressing, printing and bindery. The 4 cds will be housed in a
foil-stamped, cloth-bound hardcover 64+ page book, so it'll take a bit
of time to lay it out but should prove to be a whopper."

If you want to contribute, contact Dean at
revenant1@earthlink.net. If you have specific
material such as photos, recordings, concert posters, etc., contact
timmdaly@aol.com as he's
managing those materials for Dean.

7/6/98:
My interview with Robert Williams is still unfinished - I've not managed to get ahold
of him again (plus I haven't yet transcribed the 60+ minutes of talking we already did.

John French's (Drumbo) solo album called "O Solo Drumbo" is out. It's an excellent
album, with the drums to a number of Magic Band songs (though his version of
"The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole" is practically the
whole song). I'll have a review as soon as I can. Meanwhile, it may be showing
at Forced Exposure, Wayside, and
Downtown Music Gallery. (Anyone got URLs for the second and third one?)

Again, from Dean Blackwood at Revenant:

"Revenant's 4-cd hardcover book set of unissued/rare Beefheart tracks has
now been scheduled for November release through our distributor Koch.
This means that we need to have all tracks, texts and materials in hand
and squared away by August 1, which is only 5 weeks away. This will give
us the full month of August to do the layout and mastering, so that we
can submit everything to press by the beginning of September, allowing 8
weeks for pressing, printing and bindery. The 4 cds will be housed in a
foil-stamped, cloth-bound hardcover 64+ page book, so it'll take a bit
of time to lay it out but should prove to be a whopper."

If you want to contribute, contact Dean at
revenant1@earthlink.net. If you have specific
material such as photos, recordings, concert posters, etc., contact
timmdaly@aol.com as he's
managing those materials for Dean.

6/29/98:
Here's something from Dean Blackwood at Revenant:

"Revenant's 4-cd hardcover book set of unissued/rare Beefheart tracks has
now been scheduled for November release through our distributor Koch.
This means that we need to have all tracks, texts and materials in hand
and squared away by August 1, which is only 5 weeks away. This will give
us the full month of August to do the layout and mastering, so that we
can submit everything to press by the beginning of September, allowing 8
weeks for pressing, printing and bindery. The 4 cds will be housed in a
foil-stamped, cloth-bound hardcover 64+ page book, so it'll take a bit
of time to lay it out but should prove to be a whopper."

If you want to contribute, contact Dean at
revenant1@earthlink.net. If you have specific
material such as photos, recordings, concert posters, etc., contact
timmdaly@aol.com as he's
managing those materials for Dean.

A fellow named John Poultney in San
Francisco is looking to put together a Beefheart cover CD -
he's looking for artists who have covered Beefheart in the past and would be
interested in contributing songs.

I'll have a nifty interview with Robert Williams up soon - I need to transcribe it.
I already have more than an hour of material, and I'm going to talk more tonight.
Don't forget the upcoming chat
with Robert Williams at Graham Johnston's excellent
Radar Station.

John French's (Drumbo) solo album called "O Solo Drumbo" will be out real soon now.
I'll post a review here as soon as I get my copy and also an address everyone can
purchase it from.

6/22/98:
Intrepid Graham Johnston has scheduled a chat with
Robert Williams in
his "Yellow Yap" chat room. Take a Java-enabled browser and check it out. He has notes on
the specific times at his site.

Graham has also located 2 prints of Beefheart artwork. I'll take this chance to also point out
ArtRock and some
other places have been selling Magic Band
concert poster reprints for some time.

I recently got email from Vic Mortensen, one of the first members of the Magic Band. He
played drums until he was drafted (!) in 1965. If you've got Zappa's
"Lost Episodes" album, he's playing drums on
that early Zappa/Beefheart song, "Tiger Roach".

6/12/98:
I got the new Robert Williams album just a few days ago in the mail. (He was a drummer
in the later incarnation of the Magic Band.) It's titled
"Date With The Devil's Daughter".
if you haven't noticed me posting about it.

It's a startling mix. On one hand, it's chock-full of rhythms that jump around and should remind
you of modern music like the Chemical Brothers. On the other hand, it also has depth of
meaning that you don't normally find in that style of music. The first song has an appearance
(apparently from Robert's answering machine) of perenially odd person Wild Man Fischer. The second
and seventh song have vocals from Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, and several ex-Magic Band/Zappa
band musicians make appearances too - Moris Tepper, Bruce Fowler, Arthur Barrow...

I strongly recommend ordering it now.
It really is a good album.
His website with
Tone Casualties has some sound samples if you still are curious. I plan to get an interview in
with Robert Williams as soon as I get a chance, along with a further review of the album.

Be sure to check the Old News section if you missed last
week's notes about the spiffy Revenant release.

In other news, I just started a job with Rochester Time-Warner Cable, working as a
webmaster for their cable modem division.
Lots of fun. I have a cable modem installed now...
I'm working on setting up a potential server for HPR files.

6/5/98:
The Revenant album is shaping up like this:

1 CD containing tracks of the "rehearsal sessions" for Trout Mask Replica. These were not
rehearsals, of course, but the original work for the album. These are different than the tapes
in circulation now.

1 CD containing the original Strictly Personal tracks like those on the "I May Be Hungry But I
Sure Ain't Wierd" release from Sequel, but with additional material like Ring Korn Finger.

1 CD of bits and pieces - great songs from various times that were never released, like
Odd Jobs. I'm pulling for the unreleased Seam Crooked Sam, one of my favorites.

Possibly, and this is a big if, the original Bat Chain Puller. This album is still in limbo, so it's
not too likely it will get to happen. Can always hope, though...

Remember, none of what I just wrote is "official" - I could be completely wrong, depending on
how the project goes. exactly what will be on the CDs will be known as soon as I actually
hold one in my hands. When it's announced, I'll note it here in a big way - it will be some
number of months yet.

Tomas Flackman of the Swedish "Vi Magazine" passed along a note that he managed
to travel to Eugene, Oregon, to interview
Bill Harkleroad/Zoot Horn Rollo in person, concentrating
on what's happened since the Magic Band. The interview became a 5 page article in "Vi", which hopefully
Theo Tieman over at Electricity will be able to
translate, since I don't know Swedish. However, Tomas
sent along a nice picture of Mr. Horn Rollo: (Note: picture copyright: Magnus Toren.)

5/29/98:
Dean Blackwood (at revenant1@earthlink.net ) of
Revenant is putting together a Beefheart collection in the style of their earlier releases - i.e. a small
book with a CD. I've seen (and heard) their CD releases on other subjects like Dock Boggs or early
American music and it's startlingly well done. Anyone with rare recordings, info, whatever, that
would like to help out, should contact Dean at the address above. It looks to be an excellent
product when finished.

Graham Johnston's excellent site has now become the slightly less wordy
"The Captain Beefheart Radar Station" and is now located at
http://www.beefheart.com. He'll also now be hosting
"Filtered Thru Dust Speakers", mostly because he got the
space for it first.

I've got an external server set up that will soon be going into service, giving me oodles more file space,
so I should in theory get new movies and such up soon. See the next paragraph as to why this
may change.

I got a new job - I'm the web programmer for Time-Warner's cable modem division in Rochester.
This may change where I host HPR (or not) and therefore change the services I offer. It also means I
probably won't be working on HPR as my thesis this summer. I'm looking at taking more of a
"support" role with HPR, as Electricity and
The Radar Station are now doing all the things I used to
do (and faster, too). I'm toying with the idea of a "Lyrics archive" that we can all share, and other
material along those lines.

If you've sent me material lately, don't fret. I've got it all, but I've been in a tizzy lately with
figuring out how I'd be employed.

5/19/98:
Home Page Replica is on break for a short while. I'm applying for several jobs right now. In the
meantime, Graham Johnston and
Theo Tieman have been furiously updating
their pages.

There's good chances of a new Beefheart album... or rather, unreleased tracks being compiled
and released as a well-documented retrospective. I'll have more details as time permits.

5/13/98:
In the middle of finishing several grad projects and grading the classes I teach -
sorry, nothing much this week. I'll update this weekend, I hope.

Here's a few scraps:

Graham Johnston has the package I
sent him containing a vast quantity of Beefheart stuff, so check his site out. He's starting to get a
lot of material up, including some '85 photos of Don Van Vliet in Germany, and more...

Robert Williams' new album is on the way out - have you
ordered it yet?

My colocated server has been ordered...

5/6/98:
Sorry for the late update, but I'm in the last two weeks of my
academic quarter and I'm finishing a lot of work. Here's some news scraps.

My "captain's treasure trunk", as Theo Tieman dubbed it, is the 21 pounds of clippings and
photos that I had been keeping in my "Beefheart file cabinet". It's going out tomorrow to
Graham Johnston
in the UK and then to Theo Tieman
in the Netherlands, and then back to me. This should mean that more of this material I've been
not putting up will finally make it online, as three webmasters can outperform one any day.

I found Robert Williams' phone number again, and talked to him. I've already ordered his
new album (have you ordered it yet?)
and will have a review of it along with an interview of Robert Williams next chance I get.
I'll also be giving him some space on shiningsilence
to use as he likes. (This is an offer open to any Magic Band member, if there's
any reading this right now.)

My colocated server should be up in a few weeks, which means lots of filespace...

4/28/98:Gary Lucas (former Magic Band guitarist)
has another CD out and an online shop from which you can order his material.

As mentioned previously, Robert Williams (former Magic Band drummer)
has a CD coming out soon, called
"Date With The Devil's Daughter", available for purchase through
Tone Casualties. Anyone have
his phone number? I lost it...

My old boss over at Internet Headquarters has graciously
agreed to let me colocate on his leased line - as soon as I get another computer together
to use. This means much more filespace, which means I should start putting up more
movies, as soon as I can make them.

Speaking of movies, the videos I ordered from Dave Jones arrived - nicely packaged. Several
people have written in to note that he is quite reliable.
Check the FAQ for ordering info.
The contents, as written on the tapes:

Robert Williams, former Magic Band drummer, has a new album arriving soon, along with a
website soon to be at
http://www.willlbr.com. The CD can be
ordered online, as I have already done, at
Tone Casualties.
Here's the blurb he sent me:

"Filtered Thru Dust Speakers", Mike Shecket's spiffy
Beefheart .mp3 soundfile site, recently added the
Original Bat Chain Puller. There's a good
chance I'll be hosting "Filtered" over the summer, along with a lot more filespace, while Mike is
away from school.

Henry Kaiser sent along this news:
"The American country blues guy, ALVIN YOUNGBLOOD HART's 2nd and newest CD
scheduled for release in 2 months on Hannibal/Ryko has a band version of
ICE ROSE (aka BIG BLACK BABY SHOES) on it. Unusual for Hart as his last CD
was all just acoustic country blues and that's what he's known for. ICE
ROSE is one of two electric tracks."

I'm still going through old files - expect a master "todo" list to appear here soon. My
contact info has changed, now with my address and phone,
for those who need it. Remember, always try email first.

4/14/98:
Theo Tieman over at Electricity has noted
several UK magazines with Beefheart articles coming out. (Check there for details.) It may take
some searching in the States to find these magazines; they probably will be arriving in shops soon.

I bought an issue of Goldmine and an issue of Discoveries the other day, and I found a
few interesting items. Midnight Records has
the excellent boot "The Early Years" for US$28. There
are other nifty items scattered through the magazines, but the important one is this...

Page 74 of Discoveries lists a video seller who is selling these two videos:

Live Belgium TV '74, French TV '80, and various '72-'82

The UK 1997 "The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart" documentary and other video '68-'85.

I haven't ordered from this person before, so I don't know how reliable he is, but this is the
only source I know for this material. I'll order these videos real soon now, however. Here's the
order info, copied straight from the magazine ad.

"All tapes are recorded in SP mode and in Hi-Fi [the Beefheart tapes are not in stereo] and they
all come on TDK extra high grade VHS tape. All are professionally filmed EX- to Mint quality. All come
with custom labels (most with full track listings). Fast and Reliable service. (Most tapes go out within
24 to 48 hours.) Prices and postage: Each title is $25 postpaid in the U.S. (special 4th class rate)
U.S. Priority and Canadian air mail ad an extra $2 for first 3 tapes and an extra $1 for each additional
2 tapes. Foreign $5 extra per tape for air mail postage and $2 extra for conversion to another
country's format. (PAL, SECAM, etc.) U.S. funds only. Also available on TDK XP tape for $4 extra (S-VHS
format also available on this. S-VHS recordings can only be played back on a S-VHS deck). Or you can
supply your own blank and deduct $3 per title."

Send check or money order to:
Dave Jones
P.O. Box 9364
Wyoming, MI 49509-0364
U.S.A.
(Include 2 32-cent stamps or 2 IRCs to get a catalog, or get a free catalog with an order.)

"This is to let you know that your e-mail hasn't fallen on deaf ears. I've kept
thinking I would have time to respond individually but right now it just
can't happen. I've definitely received a ton more responses than I had
expected. So for now everyone will get this, and as time allows I'll try to get back
to the e-mails that asked for specific responces.

MOST OF ALL THANKS FOR ALL YOUR KIND THOUGHTS.

As I'm writing this I'm waiting for the manuscript of " LUNAR NOTES " (the book)
for the re-write. I hope it will be of interest to the Beefheart fans.

Bye for now, Zoot"

Note that his forthcoming book is now titled "Lunar Notes". It should be out within a month or so.
(And yes, I'll definitely announce it here as soon as I know.) This incidentally puts to rest some
debate about the lyrics to "Big Eyed Beans From Venus".

I posted the Langdon Winner article
"The Odyssey Of Captain Beefheart" in Articles.
An excellent article, but take what it says with a grain of salt. Thanks to Bill Bamberger and
Mike Shecket for typing large chunks of this article and saving my wrists, and to Mark Chandler
for sending the cover scan.

Craig Chalone is the new owner of my bass. My new computer is set up, obviously. I'm running mostly
the Intel version of BeOS, if you're technically curious.
Lots more to come in the next few weeks.

3/27/98:
There's a spiffy new Beefheart site that covers a lot of the material I haven't, called
The Artist Formerly Known As Captain Beefheart.
There's a lot of Beefheart sites popping up lately. Finally, I'm no longer the only
game in town.

Thanks for the offers - Bill Bamberger has sent along the rest of the Langdon
Winner article I needed, and I'll have it up soon. There's several people wanting to
buy my bass (which I am now spelling correctly) but if you are curious, I have
pictures here.

I'm selling my current computer and buying a new set of equipment. I may be
late on the next update, as I have to backup all my data (mostly Beefheart stuff,
of course) and won't easily answer email for a bit. I'm planning to put up a "todo"
list on the site - this will let people know what's coming, and what the status
of mailed info is. (I'm permanently behind on covering material.) Meanwhile, there
are those excellent sites mentioned above...

3/21/98:(updated)
Anyone want to buy my base? It's a US-made Fender P-Base. A wire needs to be resoldered, and it has a few dings. It's bright red, from the mid 80's, and
comes with a hard shell case, a medium sized Gorilla base/keyboard amp, and
the old 5-string bridge if you want to put that back on. (Has 4 strings now.) A measly $200 is all I ask, plus shipping. If anyone is actually interested, I'll take a picture and put it online.

Bob Horn Rollo (Bill Harkleroad's brother) sent along a picture of the early
Magic Band, which shows Rich Hepner's name in the caption.
(link now fixed)

Uncle Fester's "Fast and Bulbous"
music reviews has a review of the band "Cul De Sac"'s album
"The Epiphany Of Glenn Jones (Thirsty Ear)". Glenn Jones (who is in that band) is a
nifty guy in Boston who some years ago gave me a pile of Beefheart clippings, tapes,
and has the most amazing collection of music in his house I've ever seen.

Apparently there is a bookshop in Cardiff (South Wales) called "Troutmark" - the
owner is named Mark, and you can guess what music they play in the store.

A favor request: anyone who has a copy of the Rolling Stone number 58 Langdon Winner
interview of Captain Beefheart ("I'm not even here I just stick around for my friends") -
could you type the fourth or fifth page out for me and email it? I'm trying to type it
out to include in the Articles section, and it's loooong.

I'm down to only 16 things in my "to do for HPR" list - woo! Of course, I have a big
pile of material from a few months ago that I misplaced and have to reassemble, and
a hefty pile of images and paper clippings to sort through.
HPR will probably become some or all of my thesis project for my
Master's degree in InfoTech. I might even
graduate someday!

3/15/98:(lots of news)

NME magazine has put up an entertaining cartoon about "Trout Mask Replica" being in
(I assume Mojo's) top 100 albums of all time. Chris Hardman kindly scanned it and
sent it along - it's here in
the Articles section.

Chris James has sent along the tab to "Moonlight On Vermont", and it can be found in the
Messylaneous section.

The spiffy Bill Harkleroad/Zoot Horn Rollo interview at
Hi-Fi Mundo has been completed in its
third and final installment. I put a note about getting the Guitar Player issue with an
interview of Bill Harkleroad on his page.

Mike Shecket is adding even more .mp3 format sound files to his excellent Beefheart
sound site "Filtered Thru Dust Speakers".
If you didn't know, that title is taken from an unreleased Beefheart song "Odd Jobs" -
one of my favorites.

I forget if I asked this before - has anyone heard of Rich Hepner, apparently a Magic
Band guitarist from 1965-6, who apparently also went on to Mu with Jeff Cotton?

I've updated some of the "Ongoing Issues" down below. Nothing new there, but
check them if you haven't been visiting HPR too frequently.

A more specific question: Has any reader had experience with the various CD-R
mechanisms and can recommend one?

3/11/98: (Long update today...)
My recent honeymoon in London for the first week of March went very well - my wife and
I saw the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey,
St. Paul's, several museums, took a trip to Oxford (the Pitts Rivers museum is neat),
saw Cats at the New London Theatre, etc., etc. We plan to go to the UK again in a
few years - I'd be glad to meet some of the UK readers of HPR then. (This time...
well, it was a honeymoon, after all.)

While in London, I tried to locate the Beefheart book
Stand Up To Be Discontinued while poking around the many bookstores in
Charing Cross, but no luck. I did locate the Mojo issue that identified Trout Mask
Replica as one of the greatest albums ever, at a store called "Helter Skelter", who
also claimed to have once had Beefheart T-shirts. I compensated by purchasing the only
Beefheart CDs I didn't have - Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams.

I've included another transcription from the helpful Mark Steven Brooks - this time of
"One Red Rose That I Mean", from "Lick My Decals Off, Baby". It's in the
Messylaneous section. I'm going to have to
create a separate transcriptions section soon.

Henry Kaiser, who has worked with a number of magic Band members and has covered a number
of Magic Band songs, (and done about a million other things - does this man sleep?) has
a set of web pages up at
http://php.indiana.edu/~mpiper/HKMain.html.

David Hossack is looking for help on
a book project. Essentially, he's looking for information on "overlooked masterpieces"
of music, for inclusion in a book he's writing. If you want to write a blurb
for him on how you like a particular but mostly unknown album (doesn't have to be
a Beefheart album), contact him for details at
dhosedin@email.msn.com.

I want to move all my analog bootlegs into digital format on my computer. Anyone
have specific recommendations on good audio equipment for this? (Specifically
deck and cables to look for.) I have some equipment but it's... poor. I'm trying to
get as clean a digital copy as possible. Yes, you would probably all
reap the benefits.

Next update: By March 18, but hopefully sooner.

2/25/98:
I'm leaving on the 28th to visit London, England. This is my slightly delayed
honeymoon, as I wasn't on an academic break when I got married on the 31st. I'll
be gone until March 7th, and I daresay that I will not be making any updates
to HPR in that time.

There's an article on Moris Tepper, Magic Band guitarist, in issue 51 of Mojo. I
announced it before, but issue 51 should be available to everyone now.

Mark Steven Brooks has sent along yet another transcription, this time of
"Flavor Bud Living" from the
"Doc At The Radar Station" album.
It can be found, along with other transcriptions, in the
Messylaneous section.

The third part of Hi-Fi Mundo's excellent
interview with Bill Harkleroad (AKA Zoot Horn Rollo) may be up before I return from
across the ocean. Harkleroad's book, written with the Ant-Bee, should be out
soon, too...

Speaking of the
Ant-Bee, he sent me
his recent CD "Lunar Muzik", which I quite enjoy. I'll get a review up Real Soon Now,
but until then I'd point people at my review of an earlier CD from him,
'With My Favorite "Vegetables" & Other Bizarre Music.'.
It's like a wierd mix of early MOI, Beefheart and the Beach Boys.

For the terminally curious, I've stuck together a little CGI script in Perl that tracks
the types of browsers hitting HPR. It's a little arcane, since it was mostly for me
to use, but you can look at it here.

2/20/98:

Late Update:The band Colorblind James Experience is playing here in Rochester,
New York, on Saturday the 21st at 10 PM at Richmonds, at 21 Richmond St. I mention
this because the spot in the paper I read about the band has a picture of their
latest album, which pictures Captain Beefheart, among others, in a parody of the
Beatles "Sgt. Pepper" album. I'll try to go to the performance. Any other Rochester
readers able to go?

I uploaded several Quicktime .mov clips that I had been meaning
to put up for some time. It includes (most of) the TV commercial for
"Lick My Decals Off, Baby" and 2 short clips from the 1980 SNL performance,
which are the same ones I had posted before. Thanks to Mark Chandler for
reminding me that I had said "coming soon".

Theo Tieman, bringer of Electricity,
pointed out I forgot to put a "Van Vliet" section on the People page so
that readers could get to the transcription of the
1982 interview on the
Late Show with David Letterman. It's fixed now. Also, my counter apparently got eaten,
somehow. :( I was nearing 15,000 visits since last August. It's reset now.

Any of our readers in the U.K. able to tell me what the weather will be like in
London the first week of March? Mrs. Page Replica and I wll be spending our honeymoon
there at that time.

I've been making updates more frequently than my normal 7-day timespan, so be sure to
check my Old News page if you haven't been by recently.

2/18/98:
I've (re)added the transcription for "Peon" and added the transcription for
"Dali's Car"to the Misc section - thanks,
Mark Steven Brooks and Raymond Ricker. Is anyone feeling up to creating MIDI
versions of these instrumentals?

As several people have mailed me, the upcoming Coen Brothers movie, The Big Lebowski,
has a Beefheart song in the score - it's "Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles". The movie
has a website with a listing of the songs used in the film, at
http://www.lebowski.com/ .

2/12/98:
This is a quick update to let people know I survived the marriage ceremony. :)
I'm finishing several projects for grad school in the next week, so I'm a bit busy, but I
should be resuming my weekly update schedule. If you have the
Shockwave plugin and a relatively speedy net
connection, you can look at my Webradio project.

As Theo Tieman again scooped me on
Electricity, there's an album
called "Electricity" coming out that's apparently another release of the early
Magic Band recordings from Buddah. Nothing new except the cover art, I'm guessing...
(Though I could be wrong.)

Here's an
entertaining Beefheart picture, I would guess from the mid 1970s.

My marriage on January 31st went wonderfully. My wife and I are now happily living
together, and we have managed to (mostly) merge our stuff into our apartment. No, we
didn't play any Beefheart music at the reception...

1/29/98:
Got a few moments before I leave for Pennsylvania to get married, so here's
some quick notes. Hi-Fi Mundo
has the second part of their wonderful Bill Harkleroad/Zoot Horn Rollo
interview up. Bill Harkleroad also was apparently interviewed on the
27th on 89.1 FM, WFNM. (PA.?) - I know it's a little late to be telling
anyone, but I hope for a tape with which to make a transcription. Also,
I heard rumors that on Feb. 2, Comedy Central will air the Saturday Night
Live episode with Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band playing "Hot Head"
and "Ashtray Heart" - get them VCRs rolling.

As Theo Tieman noted on
Electricity, Moris Tepper
has a spot about the (re)start and end of the Magic Band in issue 51 of Mojo,
which should hit the stands here in the U.S.A. soon. There's a mention of
Beefheart every time I pick up that magazine, it seems. I'm quite overdue
for a review of Moris's recent album and an actual review with him - I'll
fix that soon. He told me in a recent conversation that he's thinking about
producing an animated piece using some of his
artwork.

I'm getting hitched this Saturday in DuBois, Pennsylvania to my girlfriend
of these past four years, Lani Masonis. (I realized I hadn't named her
recently.) Thanks to all that have sent their good wishes in.

1/22/98:
Big things happening. I'm getting married on the 31st of this month - that's 9 days. (!) Not
surprisingly, I'm going to be pretty busy. Go ahead and send email, files, etc, but I may or may
not be responsive. Also, my computer's boot disk is slowly chewing itself to bits, so I'm
backing everything up, quickly. While I'm at it, I'm switching to using
BeOS as my primary operating system on my computer,
so everything's in a mess, temporarily.

Mike Shecket has started a neat Beefheart MP3 website called "Filtered Thru Dust Speakers" at
http://filtered.ml.org/. (Try
this link if you don't go right to it.)

1/17/98:
More and more lyrics, this time from Petr Ferenc. He sent along a bunch of
lyrics for The Spotlight Kid - all
linked on the page for the album. I put in an entry for the album
"One Size Fits All".

I'm working also on a long-overdue search tool for everyone to use on HPR.

My father buys me a variety of blues CDs of various artists, and sometimes he
finds really great selections, like the complete 1965 Son House sessions. There's some
interesting similarities in style and even lyrics between Son House songs like
"Death Letter" and "Grinnin' In Your Face" to Beefheart songs like
"Ah Feel Like Ahcid" and
"Tarotplane". I plan to explore the lyrics in a future update; until
then, I'd recommend purchasing recordings of Son House, Robert Johnson, and
Howlin' Wolf to really see where a lot of early musical influence on the
Magic Band came from. The less-famous Charlie Patton is another obvious
style influence, and worthwhile to track down.
(Leadbelly is another favorite of mine, though not apparently related to
the Magic Band.)

Misc...
Good reports are still coming in about
Music Boulevard...
Electricity has some
nice new article transcriptions and a new picture up...
Bill Harkleroad's book written with
the Ant-Bee
is due in March/April, titled "Sun Zoom Spark". Speaking of the Ant-Bee,
I'll have a review of his most recent album up soon - I'm hoping it will be as
excellent as the last one
I looked at...

1/13/97:Music Boulevard has been reported
to have excellent service, including to non-U.S. customers. Their prices
and selection may make them the place to go when looking for in-print albums.

My "webradio" project is now up. What you see there
is a test version for the database. It's not useful yet, and
contains nothing Beefheart-related yet. (In fact, it contains close
to nothing at all.) I'll be putting samples and controls onto it over the
next few weeks. You need the
Shockwave plugin
from Macromedia to see it.

1/6/98:
Music Boulevard has a wide selection of Beefheart CDs at very low prices;
they are at http://www.musicblvd.com/
(and have been added to the Vendors page.) If
you order from them, please let me know about the quality of the service.

Several people have mailed me noting that the upcoming Coen Brothers film
"The Big Lebowski" is supposed to have Captain Beefheart music in it, as
mentioned in trailers for the movie. It's apparently due in March of this
year.

Mike Shecket's plot summary, taken from
Coming Attractions:
"A bowling player and his buddies are
the victims of mistaken identity, and find themselves surrounded in a web
of lies, gangsters, leather clad germans, torture, porn film stars,
acid flashbacks and vietnam vets, among other matters." Sounds much
like a Coen Brothers film - they also made Barton Fink and (I think) Fargo.

12/30/97:

(Late Update: the Peon transcription is garbled - A fix is forthcoming.)

I've updated the notation for Peon - Mark Steven
Brooks sent me a much cleaner version of his transcription. There's another
add-on to the Herb Berman (non?)entity,
and added the poem "Hollow Smoke",
a possible continuation to
"Old Fart At Play".

If you've sent me material in the past few months and I've apparently done
nothing with it, please be patient. My updates will be skimpier and less
frequent as my marriage on January 31st approaches.

12/21/97:Hi-Fi Mundo, an interesting web
site, has posted the beginning of an excellent interview with Bill Harkleroad,
AKA Zoot Horn Rollo, former Magic Band guitarist.

Happy holidays to all. Since it's the season for gifts, here's a few
notes:
The Electricity, site has
been updated again. (Theo's going to make me look unproductive),
Vintage LP has the original
Safe As Milk album with sticker for $70.
Intergalactic Garage has the
bootleg (shh!) album
"Puller Man", along with some
other gems like the Pearls Before Swine book that I need to review here.
Midnight Records has a number of
interesting recordings,
Saturn Records has some
Rolling Stone issues with Captain Beefheart, and
Vinyl Vendors has a few items,
including the rare "Light Reflected..." release. Buy something
for your favorite Beefheart fan. (Or buy it for me :) )

12/18/97:
Minor updates to Herb Berman's entry,
fixed Don's age in his entry, added the
article from one of the many
Safe As Milk releases, and updated the
"Hey Garland" lyrics.

I made an index to the Lyrics directory. Songs are
still linked through the albums they appear on, of course. I typed from
memory, so please tell me if I made any mistakes.

I got my issue of Resonance -
it's an excellent magazine, and the two John French tracks on the included CD
are good to hear. (Continuation of issue listed below...)

12/11/97:
I've made a "Don Van Vliet" people page, and put in a transcription of
his 1982 interview on
David Letterman, transcribed by Jamie Gullikson. I've (re)added a link to
Ted Alvy's Cosmos Topper
pages on the Links page.

Work is proceeding apace on my "web radio" project - chances are I should have
several songs in there from a variety of Magic Band members, with permission,
along with some rare Magic Band tracks and other musicians. I'll have a
prototype up soon, and will post the URL here that happens.

As per some people's suggestions, I'm also working on an "anecdotes" section,
where people can type in their own recollections of concerts, meeting
band members, etc., and have them posted automatically. I don't know how soon
that'll be working, as it's lower priority than the web radio project right now.

12/4/97:
Henry Kaiser kindly sent along the notes for
John French's new album, due out in a
few months. Currently, I'm placing the
album notes in the
People section, as the album isn't out yet.
The notes are an entertaining read, and this is (as far as I
know) a HPR exclusive.

12/1/97:
The latest issue of the CD/Magazine package "Resonance" (Vol. 6, Number 1)
has information from
John French (AKA "Drumbo") on the creation
of Trout Mask Replica, plus two tracks
on the CD of John French playing at the Festival of Experimental Music in
London, 1996. The full-length CD also has music from other, non-Magic Band
folks like Iancu Dumitrescu (from Romania), Faust (from Germany)
Altered States (from Japan) and apparently others. The magazine is 60
pages and features even more musicians I don't know.

I've not read this magazine or heard the CD yet. I'll note my impressions
as soon as I receive my copy - I am excited about hearing the John French
drumming, as I've really liked what I've heard of his non-Magic Band work.

Here's the subscription info, copied from email. As a note to my U.S.
readers, use an International Money Order at the Post Office for sending the
money via mail - it's probably the easiest way to send money in another
currency.

It's distributed in USA via Anomalous (Seattle) and in Canada by On the
Verge (Ontario). IN the Uk and Europe by These, Impetus and ReR
Recommended, in Japan by Locus Solus.

Non-UK purchaser must send cheque or IMO payable to LMC Ltd and send
payment in POUNDS STERLING ONLY. Cheques must be drawn on a British bank.

Scott (no last name given) is the 10,000th visitor since
shiningsilence came
to exist. Congratulations.

A bit of history - I've probably amassed
many times more hits since Home Page Replica started in summer 1994, when
HPR was running off of my brother's office computer. That was the only
way to get webserver access at the time, since my school had no server and it
wasn't offered with any local provider that I knew of... You can see some
pictures of that early web page if you have an old issue of Steal Softly
Thru Snow.

11/26/97:Terry mailed me that the latest
issue of Guitar Player Magazine (January 1998) has four pages on
Zoot Horn Rollo, also known as
Bill Harkleroad, one of the early
Magic Band members who played on a number of albums, including
Trout Mask Replica.

Happy Thanksgiving, to all the US readers. I'll be visiting my wife-to-be's
family in Pennsylvania for the holiday, and then my father in Buffalo, so I'll
be unresponsive to email for a while. I'm even taking my
guinea pigs.